City of Eugene revises offer for Civic Stadium

Share this story

Related Content

EUGENE, Ore. - The Eugene City Council altered its offer to buy Civic Stadium, lowering the financial commitment the city wants from a private party before committing public dollars to buy the vacant historic wooden ballpark from the Eugene 4J School District.

The city had said a private party would need to commit $5.5 million to renovate and run the stadium. On its part, the City has offered up $4.5 million in parks bond money to buy the structure.

"My challenge is not that I don't want to save Civic, and my challenge is not that I don't want something to work out," Mayor Kitty Piercy said. "I just haven't seen the thing that's going to work out yet."

On Tuesday, councilors dropped the private dollar figure from $5.5 million to $3 million.

Councilors also agreed to a 6 month timeline for those commitments to come in and another 3 months for the council to deliberate.

Councilors weren't unanimous on the plan or its chances for success.

"I for one would love to see it stay standing, but there's nobody that has that kind of resource and we certainly don't," said Councilor Mike Clark. "Saying trust us, and I don't know why the district would because if we decide not to, then they are completely out of luck with their other options."

"This motion creates a space of hope to move it forward," Councilor George Brown said, "and it's true 4J may or may not select this proposal, but we'll never know unless we move it forward. All of this stuff is contingent on 4J picking the city and I think that it's anybody's guess on how they're going to go on this."

"It simply buys us more time and creates more space and allows this thing to happen," Councilor Alan Zelenka said.

"I think our proposal is a waste of the park bond money," Councilor George Poling said.

The school district is also weighing offers from a developer working with retailer Fred Meyer, as well as the Eugene YMCA.

Both of those proposals call for removing the stadium to make way for new construction.